Meet Linguado
Linguado is a free mobile app that allows you to instantly link with native speakers of your choice of language, by proximity or worldwide.
Linguado (www.linguado.com)
HQ: Tampa, FL
Founders: Alexander Max Kaplan
Problem: When you’re looking to learn a new language, conversing daily is key to gaining language proficiency. Sure, there are plenty of mobile app and online options on the market, but they are designed to be used individually, leaving a gap for community-driven conversations.
Meet Linguado: Linguado is the fastest growing language-obsessed community in the world. It’s a free mobile app that allows anyone to instantly link with native speakers of the language they’re learning (or just want to practice), by proximity or worldwide. Linguado focuses on building and supporting an ecosystem for cultural exchange by instantly linking new language learners with native speakers. With a global community of polyglots, translators, teachers, students, and more, Linguado Nation represents 250+ countries, nationalities, and languages.
During a spontaneous weekend in Romania while backpacking through Europe, Alex wanted to get to know the country beyond the tourist spots. The only thing holding him back was not knowing if Romanians were proficient in English, so he’d have difficulty communicating while navigating alone. Ideally, he would find someone local and native to give him travel tips — and so the idea for a language and cultural exchange began to form.
Alex and his team have built technology to recreate immersion on a global scale. You can travel the world from the palm of your hand by connecting with users based on your language or country preferences. Leveraging location-based technologies, Linguado allows people to connect solely by location and nationality. Like Airbnb, it supports the ecosystem for language & culture exchange by connecting users with native speakers no matter the proximity.
Beyond language learning and cultural exchange, it can also offer social and travel-based experiences By using technology and community-based social sharing, Linguado takes the pain out of travel planning, translation services, and cultural exchange.
Why we’re betting on it: Language learning is a $60 billion plus market opportunity that is only growing and expected to double by 2025. According to HolonIQ, approximately 2 billion people across the globe are learning a new language. Driving much of the demand for language learning is the reality that English can unlock economic opportunity. Today, among Linguado’s most active countries are Egypt, India, and Brazil.
With our interest in community-driven companies layering technology over daily life, it’s clear that Linguado both solves a pain point and is purposefully built for a wanderlust audience (and beyond). The app brings people together around a common, uniting factor, whether it’s an interest to learn a language or make new friends. As both social and travel industries evolve, platforms that share experiences on-platform and in-person can keep up.
Impressively, growth has been driven organically, primarily relying on word-of-mouth virality rather than paid user acquisition — over 20,000 users sign up a week, and they simply love the platform and keep coming back. The numbers are there — monthly activity users (MAU) grew 6.5x over 2020, and performance metrics show strong app engagement as well. On average, users spend ~21 minutes in-app, and send about 400k messages daily. It’s built for user experience, with a robust product roadmap of new features and optimizations — like interactive gaming, improved chat features, and university partnerships. These developments will contribute to greater customer engagement, as well as lead to significant growth.
As the fastest growing language community in the world, Linguado has a mission to keep members actively engaged, safe, and satisfied. Their ecosystem of like-minded users around the world help each other in the learning process securely, with all conversations being consensual ones and spam blockers embedded in its technology.
Our Take: We believe their “community-first” approach sits at the rare intersection of fun and self-improvement — which is in huge demand these days, as people become more drawn in by immersive experiences, Linguado’s unique community-building experience means learners stick with the app. Users can both practice their language skills in a fun, unique way and at the same time, unlock new experiences and deep human connections. Whether the motivation is language learning, accent reduction, tips for travel, cultural exchange or business, Linguado opens up the world beyond the classroom.
Download the App now to start your linguistic journey today!
